I don't know for other forums but I think the "Similar topics" in coding forum need to be limited with the time, for example one year or six month. "Similar topics" show lot of posts from many years ago. I think, most of old members know problems and probably didn't start with reply. But new members can can start reply and make mistakes like this one:
http://www.frihost.com/forums/vt-79703.html

I don't know is this good idea or maybe is impossible, but...

Sonam

deanhills

This is an excellent idea. You're right, there are too many "Similar topics". Is it possible though in addition to the time limitation, to do a coding so that those threads of a longer time ago that are longer than two or three pages are included, as there are some really popular threads of a long time ago, that can be identified with multiple pages. I'm for example thinking about the competition of the Philosopher Princess at the end of 2006, that resulted in one of probably the best threads of the Philosophy and Religion forum.

Helios

In many cases we don't lock an old topic because the discussion can still be relevant, but in some cases we do when it is clear it will never be relevant again due to, simply, time.

It's better to have few guys reply to an old topic than having all of them locked after a certain period, because it's (still) quite difficult to code a system which will recognise a good relevant discussion from not a good one, I think, and the number of pages has nothing to do with that.

sonam

Helios wrote:

In many cases we don't lock an old topic because the discussion can still be relevant, but in some cases we do when it is clear it will never be relevant again due to, simply, time.

It's better to have few guys reply to an old topic than having all of them locked after a certain period, because it's (still) quite difficult to code a system which will recognise a good relevant discussion from not a good one, I think, and the number of pages has nothing to do with that.

I don't think about locking old topic. I just think if is possible to improve "Similar topic" script to stop display topic older then one year in scripting forum (not in other forums). But in other hand, Helios is right, maybe is better to close some old discussion when someone start to reply then loose time for new script.

Sonam

Helios

Well not displaying them isn't good either, since if there's an old topic and it holds good discussion potential, then it would be a good idea to 'bump' it to the front page.

truespeed

I think for logged out users you should have no time limit,but for logged in users i agree with sonam,if it is possible to code,then you should only show recent similar posts,or you end up with people replying to posts like this one,which was posted on today 5 years after the original post,i can only assume the poster either has no interest in football or didn't even bother to read the opening post,and was just commenting on what he thought the post was about.

ocalhoun

I would think that in the coding forum in particular, it might be helpful to have links to very old, but related topics, since those related topics might be about the very same problem.

sonam

ocalhoun wrote:

I would think that in the coding forum in particular, it might be helpful to have links to very old, but related topics, since those related topics might be about the very same problem.

This is true and in that case "Similar topic" is nice shortcut. But here is search engine, too and anyone can use it. Search engine have more possibilities to find right answer then "Similar topic".